Criticize to what end? Overturning the entire order? Questioning the legitimacy of the state? That is not allowed. But the ideological diversity within the CPC is broader than US Democrats and Republicans combined. And if you actually had a chance to challenge the real legitimacy of the US state, you would quickly find all your rights disappearing as well. No state actually tolerates that. The US just allows a facade of 'discourse'.

There's currently a deep crisis of legitimacy in Western democracy so brushing off criticism as hogwash seems to me pretty ignorant.

The core of democracy cannot be, in the words of the current American president, to be "good television". If all your democracy does is exhaust itself in staging content for social media, television and election campaigns you have inverted what the point of it is. People don't need governments so bad that ridicule becomes a daily norm, they need it to solve material problems and put food on the table. Anything else is simply decadence.

It depends on what kind of criticism. Criticism intended to overthrow the government? Maybe not. Criticism about various procedures and goals within the context of the socialist system, very much yes.